Monday, June 9, 2014

Rik Mayall

Comedian, writer, and actor -- via the BBC. Best remembered in America for his work on the pioneering, anarchic sitcom "The Young Ones."









Sunday, June 8, 2014

Dhondutai Kulkarni aka Gaan-Yogini

Singer -- via the Times of India.



Tanya Masalitinova

Actress -- via novinite.com.

Karlheinz Hackl

Actor and director -- via wien.orf.at.

Cedric Thornberry

Peacemaker -- via the Guardian.

Brajanath Ratha

Poet -- via the Odisha Sun Times.

Hanna Maron aka Hannele Meierzak

Legendary actress -- via the Jerusalem Post. More significantly, even after losing a leg in a terrorist attack in 1970, she continued as a vocal activist for peace.



Lyudmila Makarova

Actress -- via the St. Petersburg Times.

Henning Carlsen

Hienadz Buraukin

Poet and journalist -- via charter97.org.

Nongchanai Prinyathawat aka Kanchana Nakhanan

Novelist -- via the Bangkok Post.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Don Zimmer aka Zim aka Popeye aka The Gerbil

Former MLB player, manager, and coach -- via the New York Times. The reason for the batting helmet. Wish he had dug Bill Lee.



James Alan Shelton

Alexander 'Sasha' Shulgin aka the Godfather of Psychedelics

Psychedelic pharmacologist who synthesized more than 230 pschoactive compounds, most notably MDMA or "ecstasy" -- via the Independent. "Our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability."



Anna Berger

Actress -- via the New York Times.




Lee Chamberlin aka Alverta La Pallo

Actress who was a charter member of educational series "The Electric Company" -- via the New York Times. A wonderful performer, she was also quite memorable as Cordelia to James Earl Jones' Lear in 1975; also figured in Sidney Poitier's ubran films of the 1970s and much, much TV.







Barbara Murray

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

‘Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?’: Roz Chast’s rueful comedy of death

By BRAD WEISMANN

 Can’t we talk about something more PLEASANT?
Roz Chast
2014
Bloomsbury USA

Do you parents make you crazy? You are not alone. After you escape your childhood home, the pressure abates for a while, but unless they are victims of a tragic accident or you are successfully estranged from them . . . you will have to deal with their end-of-life issues. Someday. Sooner than later. It will not be pretty.


Enter Roz Chast, long-time cartoonist for the New Yorker magazine, whose neurotic musings have long reassured me that I am not alone. Once again, she steps up to provide much-needed laughter and recognition of the difficulties of caring for aged parents, and dealing with their passing, in the sad-but-funny-but-true “Can’t we talk about something more PLEASANT?”

Let's get this straight -- this is not a cute, whimsical, perky little story. Her exquisitely honest account of the ends of her parents’ lives and the repercussions thereof seemingly makes for a  God-that’s-not-funny book. With a deft mingling of narrative, graphic panelwork, and archival photographs, Chast is able to transmit the complexity of the experience into graspable, human terms, and those terms can be instantly appreciated by any reader who has gone through a similar experience.

Parents – what can we do with them? The reversal of roles, in which the children become caretakers, is at best awkward and at worst extremely painful, wrought with anger and shame. The figures that stood over us, shaped us, approved of us or not, are now in our shoes and we in theirs. As their bodies decay and their minds unravel, we are forced to take charge, making decisions, closing doors and opening doors, smoothing the path to death. With them fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting every proposal every step of the way.

What a riot? The humor in Chast’s new book comes from the relief of simple empathy. She outlines her background and childhood, provides sketches (literally and figuratively) of her parents – neurotic, apartment-dwelling New Yorkers, her mother domineering and violently emotional, her father sweet but passive. Starting with the registering of accumulating piles around their home, and untended layers of grime, Chast realizes that intervention needs to take place.

Parental taboos on discussing death, the afterlife, money, plans must be overcome. Her father’s senile dementia, coupled with her mother’s increasing bouts of disability, begin to eat up Chast’s time, thoughts, and resources. Her suppressed resentment is palpable on every page, as she deals with the increasingly catastrophic consequences of their denial of inescapable reality.

Along the way, she gives us unflinching looks at such things as the detritus left in her parents’ place (eight pages of color photographs!), dealing with mounds of incomprehensible paperwork, trying to guess what level of care can eat up how much money for what length of time, and asides regarding “assisted-living” facilities (“As Places went, it wasn’t bad. It didn’t make you want to kill yourself”). Chast is very up-front about her conflict between loveing her parents and resenting them, between revealing all and feeling that she is exploiting her situation for material. But her catharsis is real, and the reader is better for it.

There are no Hollywood ending in the ordinary lives of those we love. There is no magical closure.


“. . . I cried. The bellowing quality of the sobbing and the depth of the sadness I felt surprised me. I was angry, too. Why hadn’t she tried harder to know me? But I knew: if there had ever been a time in my relationship with my mother for us to get to know one another – and that’s a very big ‘if’ – that time had long since passed.”


The most horrible thing I could think would be to summarize by declaring chirpily that this is a book everyone will love. No, you won’t. This is NOT a book you should rush out and buy copies of for all your friends and relatives, as though it were some kind of magic palliative for the grief, confusion, anger, and sorrow everyone must wade through to get to The End. But -- if you have dealt with this subject in any way shape of form, you will find it a great comfort. And maybe it will help you deal. And that’s not an inconsiderable achievement.


Oscar Dystel

Publisher who saved Bantam Books; master of the paperback -- via the New York Times. Among his big bestsellers: "Battle Cry," "Valley of the Dolls," "The Exorcist," "Catcher in the Rye," and "Jaws."




Johnny Gray

Former MLB pitcher -- via the Palm Beach Post.


Franz-Paul Decker

Antanas Å urna


Actor -- via lyrtas.lt.

Mario Missiroli

Director -- via Il Secolo XIX.